For the uninitiated and overwhelmed, looking at modern art is less about context than what feels right against the delicate echoes of a sterile gallery—or as is our custom, whatever noise happens to be shooting through the headphones. So ending our otherwise pedestrian Saturday promenade at The Hole on the Bowery (recently voted the Most Condom-Tipped Hattiest gallery by the New York Times), we were content to chew on pretty colors and sweet paintings of whales being disemboweled when Context smacked us in the face with its sloppy wet towel. Hey, we'd heard of that TV show GIRLS before!
About 2/3rds of the caption for Beata
Because we always eat our salad before the main course (never during no way) a good five minutes was spent inspecting Jemima Kirke's Beata before our eyes roved over its description, revealing this to be a painting deserving of the piercing, jealous scorn reserved for the most precious of successful, talented, dilettantes.
But Kirke, who graduated from RISD, does not sound like one of those successful, talented, dilettantes!
Acting is secondary—I don’t feel like it’s going to stick around because it’s not something I want to do forever. My art has always been my top priority and I have far more experience in that field than I do in film. It’s hard to explain without sounding like a dick. I’m not that person. I’m really grateful for such enjoyable work, I just don’t feel as though I have any clout as an actor. I haven’t earned it, and I don’t intend to.
We'll leave the question of whether Kirke's "earned" her place at The Hole to other Important People who are better suited to judge her series of portraits (we haven't earned our clout as an art critic—a subway testicle balladeer, maybe) but we'll say that Beata is good.
It's good because it feels honest, and fits nicely with the rest of the pieces in the show, which was curated by a guy named Jesper Elg and entitled Chicken or Beef? There are plenty of human forms represented in the works but Kirke's feels like an actual person, and memorably so.
The aforementioned painting of a whale being bisected, The Gutter #1, a seven-foot tall work by Barnaby Furnas (its sly, sinister razor-clouds are best viewed from about 10 paces away) was listed for something like $250,000. Beata can be yours for just $8,000.
Besides, no one gave Dali shit for that two season stint he had on Mama's Family.
You can see Chicken or Beef? for another four days until it wraps up on April 20.
